


Vampire 101

by Spikedluv



Category: Blood Ties (TV)
Genre: Amnesia, M/M, Pre-Slash, Temporary Amnesia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-18
Updated: 2020-02-18
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:27:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22790956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spikedluv/pseuds/Spikedluv
Summary: A bout of supernaturally inflicted amnesia means that Henry forgets how to vampire.
Relationships: Mike Celluci & Henry Fitzroy, Mike Celluci/Henry Fitzroy
Comments: 10
Kudos: 52
Collections: Trope Bingo: Round Fourteen





	Vampire 101

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the _amnesia_ square in my Round 14 [Trope Bingo on DW](http://trope-bingo.dreamwidth.org/) card [here](https://spikedluv.dreamwidth.org/1591755.html).
> 
> Written: February 18, 2020

Henry’s eyebrows raised nearly to his hairline. “I’m a what, now?”

“Vampire,” Vicki repeated.

“No, seriously.”

“Seriously.”

The three of them had been following up on a lead for one of Vicki’s cases when Henry had been whammied by a witch and immediately fallen unconscious. The witch disappeared while they were distracted by their concern for Henry, who had remained unconscious during the trip back to Vicki’s office. He’d woken up just a few moments ago, and, while he’d appeared to be physically unharmed, that was not the case with his memory.

“If it wasn’t for the fact that I have no idea who I am, much less who you people are, I would find this practical joke much more funny.”

Mike snorted. “I doubt it.” As far as Mike was concerned, Henry didn’t have a sense of humor.

Vicki gave Mike a warning glare.

Henry’s attention also turned to Mike, who he gave a slow up and down look. “And who are you, exactly?” he said, voice low and sultry.

Vicki choked. “Henry, this is Mike Celluci . . .”

“ _Detective_ Mike Celluci,” Mike interrupted.

“And you’re not in any kind of a relationship with him, so please stop doing that thing with your eyes, it’s weirding me out.”

“Pity,” Henry said.

Mike spit out the sip of coffee he’d just taken. No one noticed. If they had, they didn’t mention it.

“We can prove it,” Coreen said. “That you’re a vampire, I mean.” She withdrew a Swiss Army knife from her boot and opened it. Coreen drew the sharp blade across her wrist before anyone had any idea what she had planned, much less before anyone could stop her, leaving a shallow cut.

“Coreen,” Vicki said worriedly as blood welled up.

“Quickest way,” Coreen said. She shoved her wrist into Henry’s face.

Henry reflexively recoiled, then his eyes went comically wide when he got a whiff of the blood. His eyes turned black and his fangs dropped.

“Why does that smell so good?” Henry said, then reached up and touched his mouth. “Wha–?” He hurried over to the mirror and stared at his reflection. He rubbed his eyes, as if to make sure he wasn’t seeing things (or wearing color contacts), then poked at his fangs.

“If I’m a vampire, how is it that I can see my reflection?”

“The no-reflection thing is a myth,” Vicki said.

“Why won’t they go away?” Henry poked a fang one last time before turning away from the mirror.

Henry looked young on a good day, having been turned when he was still a teenager, but his confusion made him appear even younger.

“Probably because you’re hungry,” Vicki said, “and the smell of blood is overwhelming all your other senses right now.”

At the reminder they all looked at Coreen, whose blood was running down her arm.

“Speaking of, we should probably clean that up,” Vicki said.

“We shouldn’t waste it,” Coreen said.

Vicki was brought up short. She shook her head. “Not when Henry doesn’t have any control.”

“ _Because_ Henry doesn’t have any control,” Coreen insisted. “How else is he going to feed? We can’t just let him go out there when he doesn’t know what he’s doing . . .”

“No, we cannot,” Mike said, imagining the number of people Henry could hurt, possibly kill, due to not remembering how to feed without hurting or killing anyone.

Coreen gave Mike a grateful look and continued. “He’d get caught for sure.”

Mike didn’t have the heart to tell her that he agreed with her for very different reasons.

“Alright, fine,” Vicki said grudgingly, “but . . .”

Henry moved with preternatural speed. He came between Vicki and Coreen, and had Coreen’s hand in his between one blink of the eye and the next.

“. . . he can only take a little bit. Just a sip, Henry. Are you listening to me?”

“Yes,” Henry said as he cleaned the blood off Coreen’s arm. “Just a sip.”

“If you take too much you’ll kill her,” Vicki said.

“I won’t take too much,” Henry said, then he struck.

Coreen made a sound of pain that was quickly replaced by a soft moan of pleasure that made Mike feel uncomfortable to be witnessing this incredibly intimate moment. He wanted to look away, but for Coreen’s safety (and no other reason), he couldn’t.

Vicki watched with an eagle eye. Within moments Coreen’s moans grew weaker. “That’s enough, Henry. Henry, that’s enough!”

Mike reached for his service weapon. He thumbed the holster snap open and curled his fingers around the grip. Before he had to decide to pull it, Vicki extended her baton and wacked Henry across the back of the head with it.

Henry drew back and snarled at Vicki. Mike’s grip tightened on the gun. Henry’s eyes cleared and he looked at Coreen, who was listing sideways. Henry scooped Coreen up and carried her to the couch he’d recently been lying on.

“Is she going to be alright?” Henry said.

“You’re asking us?” Mike’s comment drew a glare from Henry, which was good because it was familiar ground.

“She’ll be fine.” Vicki bustled around and returned with a bottle of juice and a couple of jam jams on a napkin.

While Vicki forced Coreen to drink and eat something Henry looked at Mike. “Were you going to shoot me, Detective?”

Mike realized he was still gripping his gun. He released it and snapped the holster closed. “You’d have lived,” Mike said.

Because he felt uncomfortable at the way Henry was staring at him, Mike pointed to the corner of his own mouth, then to Henry. “You’ve got a little something . . .”

The joke was on Mike because his body reacted inappropriately to the way Henry stuck out his tongue in an attempt to catch the drying blood. In that moment Mike was glad that Henry didn’t know how to use his very inconvenient vampire powers and couldn’t tell what Mike was feeling.

“There’s a bathroom,” Mike said, mostly for his own peace of mind.

When Henry left, Mike turned to Vicki and Coreen. “ _Is_ she alright?”

“She will be. Don’t stop drinking,” Vicki said to Coreen.

Vicki showed Coreen’s wrist to Mike; the wounds – both bite mark and cut – had already started to heal.

“You need to get Henry home before the sun comes up,” Vicki said as she watched over Coreen, making sure she ate a cookie and drank more juice.

“Me?” Mike protested. “Why me?”

“Because someone needs to stay with him until he gets his memory back, and I’m going to be busy looking for a witch,” Vicki said reasonably. “And watching over Coreen,” she added unnecessarily.

Mike rolled his eyes, but he didn’t argue. He’d stopped protesting the existence of the supernatural, but he tried to stay on the sidelines of Vicki’s investigations as much as he could. Even if he wanted to, looking for a witch wasn’t his area of expertise.

Vicki explained it to Henry.

“So the sun thing _is_ real.”

“Very,” Vicki said.

~*~

On the drive to Henry’s condo, Mike tried to ignore the looks Henry gave him. Finally Mike couldn’t stand it anymore. “What?”

“There’s something familiar about you,” Henry said.

“We’ve already established that we know each other,” Mike said.

“Not here.” Henry pointed to his head. “It’s something else.”

Mike was relieved when Henry fell silent. He wondered if Henry could sense that he’d once drank Mike’s blood? Mike parked in a visitor spot and they entered the building through the rear so they didn’t run into Greg the doorman.

Henry unlocked the door and stepped into the apartment. He looked around as if he’d never seen the place. “This is where I live?”

“Yes.”

“Fancy.”

Mike closed the door behind them and made sure it locked, then watched Henry wander through the space, touching a sculpture here, studying a book case there. Henry didn’t speak again until he stood in front of his studio.

“What’s this?” Henry said as he took a step inside.

“Your studio,” Mike said. He walked over and leaned against the door frame. “You’re an artist. Graphic novels,” he added, forcing himself to not call them comics, no matter how much he wanted to. This Henry wouldn’t appreciate the dig.

Mike let Henry check out the art on the walls and between the covers of a drawing pad for a few minutes before bringing them back to the task at hand. He explained how the sunrise would affect Henry and the precautions he’d taken.

“Sounds inconvenient,” Henry said.

“More inconvenient than a painful death?” Mike said dryly. His belly did a little flip when Henry smiled. Mike gave himself a stern warning to not get used to it.

“Are you sure we’re not . . . ?” Henry gestured between them.

Mike raised an eyebrow, wondering what Henry saw that made him think that, then pushed it away. “Pretty sure.”

“Hmm, just pretty sure?”

Mike gave an exasperated sigh. “You should get in the bedroom before the sun comes up and you’re locked on the wrong side of the door.”

“That would suck. No pun intended.”

Mike followed Henry and stood just outside the bedroom door. Vicki had told him what it had been like to be trapped in there with what was basically a corpse, not knowing what Henry would be like when the sun went down, and Mike wanted no part of it.

“How long until the sun comes up?” Henry said, then shuddered. “Not long,” he said, answering his own question. His saunter took on a little more urgency.

Henry removed his boots and laid down on the bed, arms crossed over his chest. He moved them to his sides, then back to his chest. Henry stared at the ceiling, then turned his head to look at Mike. The last thing Mike saw before the door automatically closed and locked was the fear in Henry’s eyes.

Mike ran a hand over his head at the twinge of sympathy for this version of Henry, who had no idea what was going on. He felt bad that Henry was alone behind the locked door and reminded himself that his presence wouldn’t make a difference because Henry was no longer conscious. Mike took off his coat and tossed it over the back of a chair. He called Vicki to tell her they’d made it to the condo in time and Henry was safely locked in his bedroom.

Mike refrained from asking Vicki if she’d found anything yet, since they’d left her office just an hour ago. He did tell her to call him if she needed anything. Vicki promised to call the moment she learned anything at all. Mike set the phone on the coffee table and toed off his shoes. He stretched out on the couch and pulled the blanket spread across the back down over him.

~*~

Mike woke to the sound of his phone ringing. He opened his eyes and stared at the strange ceiling. Mike recalled where he was with a start and sat up quickly. He got tangled in the blanket, but managed to grab his phone before the call went to voice mail. He caught Vicki’s name on the screen before swiping to accept the call. Mike hoped Vicki had news – preferably good news – about Henry’s condition.

By the time the sun set and Henry emerged from the bedroom (freshly showered and wearing a change of clothes), Mike had also showered, eaten take-out, and was currently going through Henry’s Netflix queue, which gave him some surprising insight into Henry’s psyche.

“You’re still here,” Henry said, unable to hide his surprise.

“You thought I’d leave as soon as you were . . . unconscious?” Mike said, feeling inexplicably hurt that Henry thought so little of him.

Henry shrugged. “I don’t know what we are. I only know what we’re apparently not.”

“Vicki called,” Mike said quickly, changing the subject. “She located the witch who cast the spell.”

“Good news,” Henry said. “And?”

“She said the spell should wear off in 24-48 hours.”

“That is good news, though I’m not inspired by her use of the word ‘should’.”

Mike tamped down on the urge to smile at Henry’s comment, and on his own disappointment that things between them would soon return to normal. “Vicki’s getting some rest, but she said we should meet back up at her office later so you can feed.”

Henry raised an eyebrow.

“She’s worried you still won’t have control.”

“She just wants to wack me upside the head again,” Henry said. It almost sounded like he was pouting.

“Better than a bullet hole.”

“True.” Henry perked up. “So we’ve got a couple hours to kill. However will we fill the time?”

Mike ignored the shiver that went through him. “Henry, are you flirting with me?”

“Badly, if you have to ask.”

Mike didn’t know what to say to that. He glanced down and remembered the remote in his hand. “Why don’t we watch a movie? For someone who complains about how wrong popular culture gets vampire ‘mythology’, you have an awful lot of vampire-related movies and shows on your favorites.”

Henry sat gingerly on the couch with a good foot of space between them. “I have a feeling I wouldn’t want you to know that.”

“No, you wouldn’t.” Mike smiled and pretended he didn’t feel another pang of regret that things would turn to normal between them when Henry regained his memory. He selected Bela Lugosi’s version of ‘Dracula’ and settled back to watch Henry’s reactions.

The End


End file.
